SpaceX conducted the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday, during which they lost communication with the upper stage of the rocket as it continued into space. The company’s webcast indicated that data transmission from Starship ceased about nine minutes into the launch. “We can confirm that we did lose the ship,” stated SpaceX senior manager of quality systems engineering Kate Tice. Following the breakup of the ship during its ascent burn, SpaceX stated they would analyze the data from the flight test to determine the root cause.
After the communication loss, social media users shared photos and videos of apparent fireballs in the sky near the Caribbean islands. The trajectory of the Starship’s launch from SpaceX’s private “Starbase” facility near Brownsville, Texas, leads it eastward, suggesting that the fireballs were likely debris from the rocket reentering the atmosphere.
The Starship, carrying no crew, launched from Texas shortly after 5:30 p.m. ET, with the “Super Heavy” booster successfully returning to land at the launch site, marking SpaceX’s second successful booster catch during a flight. The rocket contained 10 “Starlink simulators” in its payload bay, aiming to test the rocket’s capabilities for deploying future, larger Starlink satellites. While the company did not specify the composition of the simulators, they are often simple constructions used in rocket development.
Before losing communication, Starship was planned to travel to space, around half the Earth, and then splash down in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX intended to assess additional capabilities during this flight, such as the heatshield tiles and reentry trajectory. The Starship is crucial to SpaceX’s future plans, given its immense size and power, standing as the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. SpaceX has conducted six spaceflight tests of the full Starship rocket system since April 2023, with the most recent flight utilizing the second-generation “Block 2” Starship, labeled as Ship 33.
The Starship undergoes several upgrades ahead of its next launch, including redesigns of its propulsion system to boost performance, an enhanced flight computer, 30 cameras placed along the vehicle for monitoring the rocket, and a reinforced heat shield. Notably, the booster for this upcoming flight features a reused Raptor engine that had previously flown during the fifth test flight last year.
The Starship system is meticulously designed with the intention of achieving full reusability, with the ultimate goal of establishing itself as a new means of transporting both cargo and passengers beyond Earth’s atmosphere. This ambitious venture is of significant importance to NASA’s overarching objective of returning astronauts to the lunar surface. In line with this vision, SpaceX has secured a lucrative multibillion-dollar contract from the space agency to utilize the Starship as a crewed lunar lander within the framework of NASA’s Artemis moon program.
